Jaedong becomes the highest earning player in eSports, overtakes Fatal1ty

Coming second still pays a hell of a lot.

Here’s one for the record books: the most well paid gamer in history is, after almost a decade, a Korean. The Starcraft 2 professional and former Brood War prodigy Lee Jae Dong, otherwise known as Jaedong, now tops the list of prize winners following his runner-up finish at the World Championship Series finals at Blizzcon a few days ago.

According to eSports Earnings, which tracks these things, Jaedong’s earnings now total $489,384. That surpasses Jonathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel’s accumulated rucksack of $454,544 dollar bills, followed by Lee “Flash” Young Ho’s lifetime earnings of $446,371. What’s interesting though is the percentages of money each player earned. Jaedong and Flash both earned the majority of their winnings through their Brood War careers.

The list makes for interesting reading, if you’re a scholar of these matters: the breakdown of Starcraft 2 versus Brood War, DOTA 2 versus League of Legends, just how much money Warcraft 3 players made. It’s eSports history in the making.

Those figures don’t appear to take into account the money that Fatailty made/makes from hardware. There’s a whole line of Fatality merchandise that would have earned him a lot. Though that money didn’t come directly from gaming, I’d still have to say that he’s the most ‘well paid gamer in history’ considering it’s his full-time profession.

Yeah this site has been well quoted over the years… it only counts winnings, and doesn’t include salaries, merchandising deals, and streaming channel earnings.

Boxer for example earned $500,000 per year for the 6-7 years when he was in his prime from salary and endorsements alone, and this is not counting any tournament winnings. Fatality probably made a fair amount of money from his business selling gaming stuff in partnership with other companies, but that’s more an entrepreneurial thing, so it’s a bit of a grey area..

There’s no reliable way to take into account the earnings someone makes outside of tournaments since contracts aren’t widely published; I’d be staggered, for instance, if Creative or any of the other hardware manufacturers over the years released the amount they paid Wendel.